Streaming digital media from a remote source to a local client over a network is an increasingly popular way of obtaining and viewing media such as video using computers, tablets and smartphones. In some contexts, it is even desirable to simultaneously view multiple media streams in a specified or controlled manner. Unfortunately, the requesting of multiple media streams to accommodate a specified or controlled manner of simultaneous display has to date presented difficulties that have hampered implementations of such functionality.
One popular way of delivering data over the Internet includes establishing a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection between a data source and a client, and using the TCP connection to transmit requests from the client to the server and requested data from the server to the client. But when multiple TCP connections exist between the client and server in a constrained network environment, the TCP connections tend to compete with each other for available bandwidth and other network resources, and through this competition move toward a state of bandwidth equality with respect to each other. Thus, merely assigning multiple simultaneous media streams to multiple different TCP connections between the client and server, or to other multiple connections that behave in a similar manner, tends to promote bandwidth equality among the streams. However, bandwidth equality among multiple simultaneously streams conflicts with the desire in some contexts to simultaneously display the media streams in a specified or controlled manner other than involving equality of the size, resolution or quality of the displays.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved way of requesting and receiving multiple media streams so as to enable the simultaneous display of the streams in a specified or controlled manner other than with equality of the size, resolution or quality of the displays.